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City police are warning the public about the release of an inmate with a history of violence. Matthew Adrian Boyes, 43, was released into the Calgary area Monday after serving a two-year federal prison sentence for breaching conditions of his last peace bond.

DRUMHELLER — With the family of Dr. Geoffrey Cragg looking on, the man who killed him in 1992 took his first steps toward freedom on Thursday when the Parole Board of Canada approved his application for several unescorted passes from prison. It was the right decision, said Cragg’s widow, Marion Haythorne.

Staff at the Calgary Remand Centre failed in their duty to protect an inmate who now has permanent injuries resulting from a beating at the hands of other prisoners, a lawsuit alleges. The lawsuit filed in Calgary Court of Queen’s Bench seeks unspecified damages against the provincial government, the director of the remand centre, Richard Wilson, and two inmates criminally charged in connection with the Aug. 20, 2012 assault on Denis Telyakov, a Russian citizen who was in Calgary studying English.

On Tuesday, Calgary’s Juliet Guichon and Dr. Eric Wasylenko were among the handful of recipients recognized with an award from the Canadian Medical Association. Wasylenko, awarded for his work in medical ethics, talks to Herald health reporter Jamie Komarnicki about pressing issues in palliative care and a new challenge addressing health-care ethics in Canada’s prison population. This interview has been edited and condensed.

A Calgary man who stabbed his friend to death will this week be released from jail early, despite concerns from the Parole Board of Canada he poses a significant risk of committing more violent crimes. A friend of his victim called the decision “absolutely ridiculous.”

BOWDEN, ALTA. — Because one of the men involved in the killing of Calgary financier Jack Beauchamp will spend more time behind bars, his family will have more time to heal. Beauchamp’s wife, Debra, made a personal appeal to the Parole Board of Canada on Thursday to deny Robert Deer’s bid for early release from prison, saying her family needed a respite from years of legal proceedings and appeals that followed Beauchamp’s killing in 2006.

Police have recaptured a sex offender who was unlawfully at large from Bowden Institution for several hours Sunday. The RCMP arrested Maurice Rondeau, 64, at about 9:30 p.m., about three kilometres north of the federal prison complex near Innisfail.

Serving time in prison has three functions — punishment, rehabilitation and public safety. The punishment aspect, however, does not mean that more punitive things should be piled arbitrarily on inmates. Nor does it mean that inmates’ rights can be eroded behind bars.

“I never had a family of my own — all of my life, I’ve looked after everybody else’s kids.” As she says these words with a laugh, Joanne MacLean insists she has no regrets when it comes to her career of more than three decades. “It’s been hard work,” she says. “But when you see a kid realize their potential, it’s incredibly rewarding.”

A judge said Wednesday he holds little hope for rehabilitation of a Calgary man who pleaded guilty to two “horrific” unprovoked attacks on fellow inmates at the Calgary Remand Centre. Provincial court Judge Frank Maloney, who accepted a joint submission by Crown prosecutor Jonathan Hak and defence lawyer Allan Fay, called Riley Boland-Luyendyk, 22, a high risk to reoffend as he delivered a three-year sentence for assault and aggravated assault, as well as unrelated charges for possession of a weapon and three breaches of bail conditions.

A battery of tests rate sex offender Xavier Bissonnette a low risk to reoffend, but his long criminal past proved too much for the Parole Board of Canada to overlook. The parole board turned down a recent application by Bissonnette, who was convicted of aggravated sexual assault for having unprotected sex with three women without telling them he is HIV-positive.

A condemned child killer will not be allowed to donate organs to his ailing mother and sister before his execution this week, Ohio prisons officials said Tuesday after determining the process would pose significant security and logistical challenges.

A blind man convicted of sexual assault will have to go to jail after all, the province’s top court has ruled. In a 2-1 split decision released on Tuesday, the Alberta Court of Appeal said the trial judge erred in several instances in concluding Keith Myette, who competed in the 1984 and 1992 Paralympics for Canada, should not have to be incarcerated and handed him a suspended sentence with house arrest for the attack on Feb. 5, 2011.

A part-time correctional officer has been charged after police say marijuana was being smuggled into the Medicine Hat Remand Centre for inmates. Officers with the Alberta Law Enforcement Response Teams, or ALERT, launched a drug trafficking investigation after receiving numerous tips, said Staff Sgt. Joe West.

Jodie Emery and several opposition MPs are holding a joint news conference at Ottawa’s Parliament buildings Tuesday morning calling on the Conservative government to let her marijuana activist husband Marc serve out his prison sentence in Canada.

Decimated, divided and disrupted — but not done. The decision by two veteran FOB gang members to turn against the group and testify for authorities was a stunning coup for Calgary police, who used their evidence to lay murder and conspiracy charges against five veteran gangsters.Many of FOB’s original members have been killed in a long-running conflict with the FOB Killers, and many of those who remain are serving lengthy prison sentences or are now faced with the possibility.But FOB members remain on the streets, capable of continuing the gang’s drug business.With the rival FOB Killers (FK) still in business — and largely unscathed by any major police investigations — police warn Calgary’s underworld remains a dangerous place.

The life-threatening stabbing of gang guru Nicholas (Nick) Chan on April 23 could be the catalyst for renewed eruption of violence between his FOB and bitter rival FK, according to statements made to police as part of an information to obtain a search warrant of Chan’s home. One criminal, who is familiar with the feud that has claimed 25 lives over several years, says Chan knows who his attackers are and told a detective that “gang violence between Nick Chan and his enemies will be reigniting imminently and that police will be busy as a result.”

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